My day!

[Cuppa]

The day started quite well if you don't count having to wander across our hilltops looking for newborn lambs in driving rain & wind gusts enough to sit me on my butt. Didn't find any new ones, so back to the house to warm up & dry out before going out to the shed to complete installing the left hand wheel arch flare & mud flap. Must have been holding mty breath & crossing my toes or something, but it all came together quite quickly & without the dramas I had had on the right side.
Headed down the road to borrow our neighbour's well used cage trailer, which I brought home, hosed out the deposits left by it's last load (sheep poo), checked all the lights worked & loaded my 6 new ROH rims into it & took off to town to get my new tyres.

Tyres were fitted to the rims & the vehicle, replacing the split rims. Even though the tyres are wider (265/75 from 235/85) the wheels are lighter in weight. Unfortunately they do not fit onto my dual spare mounts. It may be possible with a little fettling to the mount, but if not I'll need to find a local welder to make some alterations (I wouldn't trust my welding for this weight yet).
Tyre joint put 40psi all round, & suggested I up this to 50psi on the rear when fully loaded. I am well pleased with this, as apart from wanting to change to tubeless my main motivation was to be able to run lower pressures as I think this will reduce risk of punctures. Previously I needed 68psi in the rear tyres. This also means I can get a Tyredog warning system at a reasonable cost (the cheaper models go up to 60 psi - truck models with for higher pressures are a lot more expensive).
The bloke at the tyre place also told me that I would notice a less harsh ride over corrugations/potholes etc. (He was right. :) ) He also told & showed me that I had some slop in my front wheel bearings, both sides. :( Not bad, but needs adjusting. Not yet sure if adjusting them is much of a drama - have adjusted wheel bearings before, but never on 4wd (manual) hubs. Hadn't noticed it whilst driving!

Anyway I've loaded the old 4 wheels plus the two new spares into the trailer & headed back to the hills, driving along happily at 100kph, wondering if there is a little more road noise than with the old tyres & considering myself lucky that SWBHTB (She Who Brings Home The Bacon) is ok about me spending $1560 on tyres. Thought I'd save her her usual homebound detour to the mail box so headed to our local township (20kms from home).Having turned into the township I was driving slowly up the hill past the primary school, only in second gear, when I heard an almighty graunching sound which I immediately recognised as not a good thing. Looking in my rear view monitor revealed there was a problem with the trailer. I immediatey pulled over to the side of the road & switched on my hazard warning lights, which now, unlike earlier in the day, did not work!

Hopped out to survey the damage. The arse of the trailer was sitting on the bitumen, with the whole bloody trailer having snapped in half. Clearly the weight of the six wheels were the straw that broke the trailers back! Hmmm, what to do? Not keen to leave hudreds of dollars worth of wheels sitting by the side of the road, but they needed to be removed before I could even tip the trailer back into it's normal position. Having stacked them up on the kerb I set about trying to 'repair' the trailer, enough to get me the 20kms home. With the aid of a length of heavy fencing wire (wasn't I smart to have some wth me) & some rope I pulled the trailer back onto it's chassis & tied it down, replaced all the wheels & tied them so that most of the weight was at the front, & set off home, slowly, hoping I would get there. I had visions of driving up the corrugated hill to our place & seeing the trailer disappear over the side of the road, whilst the drawbar remained attached to the Patrol. The trailer chassis (square tube) had completely broken on one side, & cracked/bent in the same position on the other side.

Thankfully I made it home with the whole trailer, unloaded & returned the heap of junk to it's owners.
A replaced fuse saw the hazard warning lights working again. I expect the old one blowing had something to do with the trailer too.

Phew!

Cuppa

Ps. advice on adjusting front wheel bearings welcome...... can I just unbolt the manual hub lock assembly & then adjust the wheel bearings? Does the hub lock assembly come out as a single unit, or am I going to get springs etc going 'boing' as I remove it?

Pps. New tyres have white lettering on them, except it is blue. Does the blue need to be washed off or what?

Ppps. Was going to take a pic of the Patrol with the new wheels/tyres & flares but it was dark by the time I finished sorting things out, & they are already muddy anyway.

[growler2058]

Hub comes off easily enough mate. From memory no nasty surprises

[mudnut]

Wow, Cuppa, you were lucky the trailer didn't go AWOL with all your goods! I heard that we are having the wettest start to winter in 150 years. (THEY SHOULD'VE BUILT A FEW DAMS INSTEAD OF THAT STUPID DESALINATION PLANT). I expect there will be a few casualties in next door's flock with the wind chill.

[Bloodyaussie]

Wow mate what a trip....... nothing worse than a simple exercise turning into a huge drama..

Good to here you got the wheels and tyres all done though mate...

Hope to get back your way soon when the lambs are a bit older and I can nail some of those bloody foxes.

How will your neighbour be about the trailer??

[Alitis007]

If you take the bolts off the hub it should virtually fall off, possibly with a light tap and there is nothing scare behind it. The fact that the wheel bearings are loose could mean they are a bit dry so it might be a good time to remove the whole rotor hub and repack the inner and outer bearings and check the condition of the grease seal.

What you will find when you remove the manual hubs is a lock washer with 2 phillips headed screws that screw into the the preload washer. If you don't have the fancy tool to unscrew it you can use 2 phillips screwdrivers into the 6mm holes and a third to use as leverage. You will have to remove the caliper to remove the rotor hub off the stub axle but you can remove it with the cradle from the 22mm bolts that attach it to the swivel hub, you could also separate the caliper from the cradle to regrease the caliper slides but its your call. If you go that far remember to add a dab of locktight super stud lock (265 i think ) and tighten the 22mm bolts as hard as you can coz they have been known to come loose. The caliper is held on by 2 17mm blots but you will also need to hold the slide with a 19mm spanner to loosen the bolts.

If you do grease both bearings it might be a good idea to buy a couple of the wheel bearing grease seals incase they are or get damaged during the whole process, also repack the with High temperature bearing grease.

[Cuppa]

Thanks people.

Jonathan... when I took the trailer back the owner commented that the last person to borrow it had had a problem as it was returned on that occasion with a tie down strap holding the cage to the chassis! No strap when I took it today though, & no mention made of this! I'm just pleased that it didn't let go at 100kph with someone behind me.

George. Thanks for that description, very helpful in conjunction with the manual I got from here. I'm inclined to just try tightening up the preload a little at this stage, unless it looks especially dry when I take the covers off. If more than that is required I may pay to get it done. My shed floor is not the best place to be doing work which requires absolute cleanliness, plus if I stuuf anything up, I then have no way to get the vehicle to somewhere else - one of the dramas of living way out of town. It's the sort of thing I'd do if I had to, but not from choice.

I's hard to tell from the diagram, but when tightening up the preload I assume it does both inner & outer bearings at the same time?

The manual also says to check preload using a spring balance. Do folks really do that or is it sufficient to treat it like any other wheel bearing & just tighten it up/back it off a tad, so that there is no axial movement, spin the wheel in both directions & re-check?

Cuppa

[growler2058]

Yep don't tighten too much though

[threedogs]

Just Gernie the lettering, big difference in handling the now. have you had a chance to try with out trailer.
Put pic of wheel carriers on rear up and I'll see how you can make them wider apart. You moving one or two carriers?
Just out of interest did the trailer drawbar break just where the tub/platform is at the front?

In other words just a normal day for the man on the land.

[Cuppa]

Hi TD, will get the Gernie out later today, & then take a pic of the carriers. Two carriers. A slight possibility that a little fettling with an angle grinder might be enough, so will try that first, otherwise I'll put up a pic.

Trailer broke about a foot behind where the tub/cage attached to drawbar/chassis. The floor separated from the walls & the whole lot from the chassis. Chassis looked like Healy's Patrol on a smaller scale.

Yep just another day ...... LOL.

May have to put off checking/adjusting the wheel bearings for a few days. Need to do some more firewood collecting over this long weekend before we get the loan of the hydraulic log splitter next weekend. No big mileages involved, the wood I'll be cutting is only about a 2km round trip x however many loads we manage (depends whether MY trailer holds together!).

Cuppa

[happygu]

Cuppa, if you have extra indicators ( lights ) on the vehicle, it will always blow the 10A Fuse with a trailer on. To stop this you need to change the fuse to 15A.


Mic

[Morton]

x 2 with happygtu, 15 amp will stop the issue once & for all, the blue on the letter will wash straight off with a with the wife's washing scourer, the bearings, remove the 2 small grub screws & tighten up to the next hole, refit the grub screws, when removing the locking hubs, make sure they are in the 'unlocked' position first, mark it with a white pen or something & refit it back in the same spot, since your in the bush, refit it with a smear of silicone to seal it & tighten, this will stop water entry, the adjustment you are talking about when using the scale is for the kingpin bearings for the swivel hubs, as this is an involved process & your not pulling you swivel hubs down at all it is not required, I think you should look at the outer bearing at least to give an indication as to whether repacking is required, it will pop out easily if you remove the retaining plate, make sure you refit the retaining circlip, if you cant get it onto the notch simply pull the axle towards yourself, it will have 2-3 mm of play, enough to get the circlip in place, make sure it is 100% in place.